Need a 3 step curriculum for a 15 year old noob kid who wants to be great at AppSheet

[StephenMattison]

Howdy!  8 years ago I jumped into AppSheet (sideways! lol) because I needed to automate & streamline my small businesses.  Now I want to help some young people get a better/smarter start learning the complicated expressions & formulas than I did.  If I could break it down in 3 beginning steps, what expression & formula, or non-AppSheet stuff should a kid study/learn in steps 1 & 2 so they could start building great little Apps in step 3?

I need a 3 step curriculum for a 14-15 year old noob kid who wants to be great at AppSheet.

TYVM!

[takuya_miyai]

Hi @StephenMattison 

I think it is a wonderful initiative.
I would tell them this.

Step.1 What am I or we are in need of? And what do we want to do?
I think the most important thing in developing a system or application is actually the ability to clarify this.
Many people are not able to clarify what they need and what they need to do.

It can be anything. If I am forgetting things, then I need a reminder note application. If my dog is important to I, then a dog health management app.
The most important thing is to be able to talk about what needs to be done in our own words.

Step.2 Data modeling
Prepare the ability to model what you are having trouble with.
This resource may be helpful.

https://support.google.com/appsheet/answer/10106580

Step.3 Now we just need to make it happen with AppSheet!🤗

[StephenMattison]

Thank you for the thoughtful comment, but I am looking more for exactly what technical, non-Appsheet information a kid (or anyone) should start to study/learn first, to be able to put together the advanced expressions & formulas required to build  great/advanced AppSheet apps that busy people would pay for.  To make this process less overwhelming, I need to streamline this "curriculum" into 2-3 steps, or resources that a person could study in their free time, so I need a very short list of URL links that someone could use to immediately begin at the 101 level and then move forward quickly.  Thank you very much!😊

[Steve]

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@StephenMattison wrote:

I need a very short list of URL links that someone could use to immediately begin at the 101 level and then move forward quickly. 

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This is entirely unrealistic. If AppSheet were that easy to learn, it wouldn't need a community like this.

You've been using AppSheet yourself for quite awhile. What would you suggest, @StephenMattison?

[StephenMattison]

I'm puzzled at your response, of all the people here, I thought you'd have the perfect answer. If anything, what I'm trying to do would save lots of noob questions from needing to be asked of this community.  I'm trying to make it easy for beginners to get a better/easier start than I did. It took Phil 45 minutes on the phone to walk me through the basics of straightening out my first App, this to me seems unrealistic.  I have a very busy life and end up learning the expressions & formulas that I need the hard way, often requiring help from many amazing wizards here, thank you all!  I still do not know enough about advanced expression/formula syntax & everything that is even available/possible at my fingertips to sit down & instruct others. I'm great at telling people about AppSheet,  and all the great things it can do, but I'm not the best person to teach coding-type expressions & formulas, and I don't have time to research where the best/most streamlined source of learning/knowledge is. Telling most 15 year olds to just start at page one of the official AppSheet Documentation is not what I want to do.

[SkrOYC]

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@StephenMattison wrote:

Telling most 15 year olds to just start at page one of the official AppSheet Documentation is not what I want to do

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I'm sorry for disappointing you but that's how I learned and I couldn't have chosen a better route

[StephenMattison]

You're not disappointing me, great job!

[Jonathon]

I do feel inclined to point out - if you have to ask these questions, you probably aren't well suited to be putting together a course on the subject. Particularly when resources already exist for learning. E.g. AppSheet Training @Stefan_QREW 

[StephenMattison]

I do not appreciate the insult, sir, especially when your assumption is incorrect and unnecessary. I never said I was "putting together a course", and I even said I was not the best & don't have time to teach expressions & formulas, it's why I asked for help.  What I said was I was trying to help youngsters get a jump start into the power of expressions & formulas, I figured someone would say, go here 1st, there 2nd & they'll easily learn the basics of syntax, expressions, formulas. I appreciate the kind input that I have gotten, it looks like Matt's already got something like this started. And, as helpful as that "Appsheet Training" link that you suggested is for people already into apps, I'm thinking it's an example of what NOT to send to most 15 year olds spreadsheet noobs who want to build amazing apps. That link is like telling a teenager, who's never worked a miter saw to go to Home Depot & build their own house.  It could be done, but for most youngsters, overwhelm would likely set in quick. I'm trying to avoid that, and help people.

[Jonathon]

Apologies, I reread my message and I can see why it comes off as aggressive/offensive - that wasn't my intention.

I'm not sure that collecting resources / links will be useful for learning. That's just overwhelming in a different way. If you encounter a dev problem, the best resource is google or a community like this. Knowing how to search for answers is half of my job.

[StephenMattison]

No worries. I reread my original Ask and I did use the word "curriculum" which would suggest a "course" but I used that word only to convey "an organized learning system" that I was hoping to find.  And I'm not looking for an overwhelmingly long list of places to learn expressions, I knew that would be a problem, it's why I presented it asking about a Step 1 & Step 2 before beginning to build Apps.  I agree 1,000% that this Appsheet community is irreplaceable and amazing, and the only place to go for help once an app is begun, and you're correct, knowing how to search for answers is crucial to finding a solution before overwhelm sets in.  By now, I know enough about expressions to search out & answer most of my own questions, but still have to ask the community for help sometimes.  Noob 15 year olds would not even know how to properly ask the community for what they need.  Thank you for your thoughts!

[SkrOYC]

App design 101 - AppSheet Help

[StephenMattison]

Thank you, I suppose it's nice to have this helpful AppSheet link in this Thread, but that information is far beyond the beginning expression/formula learning knowledge that I am looking for.  I am planning on teaching them "App design 101", that's the easy & fun part. But without a deeper set of expression syntax & formula building skills, they could only build toy apps. I find lots of "Excel formulas for dummy" URLs, but I was hoping someone in the Community would have already boiled this down to one or two GREAT URLs that would teach expressions & formulas that would be more AppSheet oriented. TYVM!

[SkrOYC]

AppSheet function list - AppSheet Help

[StephenMattison]

Thank you!

[MultiTech]

I've got a list of common formulas I use; mastery of these will help anyone.
Logic Operators to Master

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AND(), &
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OR()
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NOT()
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IN()
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CONTAINS()
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=, <>

Functions to Master

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IF(), IFS(), SWITCH()
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ISBLANK(), ISNOTBLANK()
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Functions for working with text
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Concatenate()
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Left(), Right(), Mid()
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Find()
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Substitute()
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Len()

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I'm actually working on a foundation series right now. It's big, and
growing every day... uh oh.... lol
- But *I'm including everything I wish I knew before I started*

Stay tuned... 🙂

*Wishing you the best*
Matt <>

YouTube <> |
LinkedIn <> | Patreon
<>
MultiTechVisions.com <> |
AppSheetInsider.com

[StephenMattison]

Thanks Matt, "Everything I wish I knew before I started AppSheet" would be the perfect title for what I'm trying to do.  I'll check back with you and see how your thing turns out.  Often, when I find "instructions" on some of the more advanced expressions, they don't always -explain it like I'm 5-, and sometimes I'll learn something, and then have to relearn it a year later. lol  One condensed source of learning expressions & formulas would be a great resource for AppSheet/spreadsheet beginners.  Turning this into an App, as I think you're suggesting, could be a neat way to "game-ify" expression learning. This would be the perfect learning scenario for my 15 year old noobs. Thank you!!

[Jonathon]

A lot of people find their way to AppSheet through spreadsheets. Spreadsheets introduce many of the key concepts of app building - structured and semi-structured data, lookups, data validation, data types, rudimentary UX design, etc.

There seems to be a bit of a self-selecting bias whereby the type of person to nerd out and create crazy spreadsheets end up discovering a tool like appsheet, and the expressions/concepts are similar enough that the progression feels natural. If this was you, then you probably would have benefited from some crash courses on:

• Relational data models (most important thing to understand to be successful with AppSheet, imo).
• The importance of data types, 'clean' data, and choosing good pkeys/fkeys.
• Data security / user authentication concepts.

These are things that, if done improperly, will make everything else more difficult and probably warrant an app rebuild in the future. There's a ton more to learn after this, but it's harder to recommend as it gets pretty situational.

One topic that AppSheet is surprisingly great at teaching is UX design patterns... In most cases, what not to do. AppSheet makes you really appreciate a well thought out UX when you encounter one in the wild. And I'm not trying to be critical of AppSheet with this statement, that's just the nature of the product - its one of the most opinionated low-code options on the market.

AppSheet forces you to get creative within their constraints, which is a great exercise in problem solving in addition to preparing you for the reality of every system - there are always constraints. If you build apps in other platforms, you will come to appreciate how friggen fast you can build something in AppSheet. And this has nothing to do with how intuitive their process is -- its not -- it has everything to do with how constrained the choices often are.

[StephenMattison]

Great info, great thoughts, thanks Jonathon!

What do you mean by "pkeys/fkeys?" Update 8/4/22: I've been in this Community & building Appsheet apps for 8 years & I've never heard Keys referred to as Primary keys & Foreign Keys. Will study up.

Thank you!

[Swoopy]

pkeys...primary keys

fkeys...foreign keys

These are very basic and fundamental subject in database design to minimize redundancy of data. Always avoid copying the same data from one table to others (which's actually funny to do so IMO).

Then a creator can use AppSheet's ref-type columns, related-tables-list columns, and dereferences efficiently and also can reduce using fatty SELECT expressions in many places.

[Swoopy]

This is the right & safe way to go along with AppSheet (or any other platforms).

Every single changing of table structure means all related apps must be modified.

Changing of data structure means all related apps may need to be re-built (too hard to be modified).

[SkrOYC]

I think you may like this one:

From Noob to Fluent in 3 steps - Google Cloud Community

[StephenMattison]

Hey, this looks great, very useful, Thank you very much!!

[SkrOYC]

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@Swoopy wrote:

Always avoid copying the same data from one table to others (which's actually funny to do so IMO).

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Well, it depends. If you are already familiar/fluent with a real RDB design, then you can extend AppSheet's usage by breaking them wisely 😉

[Swoopy]

I think I'm familiar/fluent with real RDB design but I don't think so, sorry for typing this.

[SkrOYC]

Yeah, I get it. Don't worry, I know that there are mixed opinions about how respectful our AppSheet apps should be with RDB rules

[Jonathon]

Normalize until it hurts, then denormalize until it works.

[SkrOYC]

Man, that phrase!!!

[Swoopy]

Right. Generally a database should reach 3rd level of normalization. Going beyond that may hurt the development. Denormalize only when it promote more efficiency in some situation.

[SkrOYC]

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@Swoopy wrote:

only when it promote more efficiency in some situation

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...or it can help you (the creator) to add features to your AppSheet apps.
I'm actually impressed that this is not a well known thing

[Swoopy]

 

It's mentioned in basic RDB guide if ones have read well enough.

[Kirk_Masden]

I would be honored if your learner referred to this tip of mine:

How to start using an app on your phone
https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Tips-Tricks/How-to-start-using-an-app-on-your-phone/m-p/4614...

It's for beginners and something that I was confused about when I first started using AppSheet.

[StephenMattison]

Wow, this looks great Kirk!  I will for sure include this perfect intro-walkthrough info, thank you very much!

I love that you started with "How do start using an app on my phone" Exactly what any youngster wants to start with. Once they use the first app they built on their phone, no matter how simple it is, they'll fall in love with AppSheet and build more & better apps.  Great stuff!

[1minManager]

A couple of points from me.  When I started with Appsheet I was already doing quite complicated stuff with spreadsheet formulas.  So the first issues I had were all around linking tables together.  I remember a couple of times screwing up the Ref/Defer columns and having no other choice than to delete the table and add it again.  Doh!

Get them to build a simple 2 table App to understand the basic struture and key columns etc.

Then for formulas i'd start by going though the basic ones e.g. AND(), OR(), NOT(), IN(), SPLIT() etc.  But importantly just on columns in the same table.  Once they've learnt that then branch into Select() to get stuff from another table.

Alternatively, get them fully up to speed with all Google Sheets formulas, then transistion them over to appsheet.

Hope this helps 🙂